The summer is almost over. Or at least it feels like it's almost over. It will be August in two days, and then, from August, it's a cakewalk to autumn. I love autumn, and I wish I could live in a place that was autumn all year round. Sweaters and tea and changing leaves and new television shows- lord. How can it get any better than that? Of course, autumn turns very quickly into winter around here, and then I slump into a deep depression complicated by snow storms and feeling like I should be asleep by eight pm, because, christ, by eight it's already been dark for three hours.

I wish I could go back to school, that I could spend the first part of fall feeling full of hope. If I could afford to go back now, I think I would do one of those two year programs to become an x-ray tech. You think I'm kidding? First of all, the population is aging, and the older people get, the more x-rays they need. Job security. Second of all, I'd feel like I was making a difference somehow. Like I was helping people who really needed it. Third of all, it would be neat. Think of all the x-ray vision jokes! Fourth of all, I hate science. And if I could excel in something remotely scientific, I'd be pretty damn proud of myself. I would write my anatomy and physiology teacher and say, "Look at me, now, bitch! I went from making a complete mockery of disecting the mink to becoming the mink!"

Well, not becoming the mink exactly, but at the very least taking x-rays. Of a human. Jeez, that letter would make no sense at all.

Instead, I'm not going back to school. One day, when I get a time machine, I will go back to my 17 year old self and tell her the following things:

Enjoy college. Work sucks.

Don't major in marketing. Major in something you'll actually get a respectful job in, instead of ending up in a job that has absolutely nothing to do with your major and essentially nullifies your degree into a complete waste of four years.

Get an internship, you idiot.

Maybe I should have listened to my parents. They wanted me to be a teacher. I didn't want to be a teacher. And now I don't have summers off. Damn it! Why didn't I listen when they said stuff?

Alright, this game is taking up too much of my time:

Jelly Blocks

I think I'm obsessed with it. It's easy for about the first thirty-five or forty levels, then things get a little dicey. All day at work today, I found myself rearranging the items atop my desk a la a Jelly Blocks board. And there's a lot of shit on my desk. The last five business days of the month are always a mad race to get as much shit done and collected as possible, because that report that comes out on the first of the month? Oh, that report can result in the kind of wrist slapping that smarts. Smarts!

I'm collecting juicy stories from the different clients I've been meeting. So far I have a Comedy of Errors and a Law and Order type Drama. Some people run their companies like I do a load of laundry. Which, if you've seen my whites, is not necessarily carefully or conscientiously. Nonetheless, names will be changed to protect the innocent, and serious bookkeepping errors will somehow become a friendly, yet retarded dog named Jojo. Metaphors, bitch!

Went to a dog's birthday party yesterday. I didn't know the dog personally, so I didn't bring a gift. The whole thing was a little odd for me. Maybe I'd have to be a pet-owner to really get it, but I have a very hard time with people who refer to themselves as "Mommy" when speaking to their dog. Or people that give their dogs human middle names, so that when they need to scold them, they cry out "Fido Lynn!" or "Rex James!" These are just two examples of behaviors that I do not understand. I had a dog growing up, and we loved that dog, but I never considered him my "brother" and we certainly never threw him a party with a dog bone pinata. Imagine your own tilde over the n, because I don't know how to do that. Oh well. I had fun nonetheless because while there was a cake for the dogs, there were bottles of beer for the humans.

I finished season two of Lost only to discover that season three isn't out on DVD until just before Christmas. Those fucking cock-suckers. They have the episodes all ready to throw onto a disc, so why isn't it done yet? I suppose I could buy the episodes on i-Tunes, but I'm not the kind of person who buys songs and movies off of i-Tunes. Albeit briefly, I did consider it, but I'm not playing into their game any more than I have to.

Chris and I bought a sofa today for the new house. One of many large purchases we're going to be making. I had dreams of taking a little vacation for my impending birthday, but I don't think it's going to be financially feasible. Whose idea was it to buy this house?

Back to my birthday- I'll be 27 in about two weeks. For how I feel about turning 27, see last year's blog entry on turning 26, and then multiply the dissatisfaction by two.

I received my VC Andrews books in the mail. So scandalous and inappropriate. Who let me read these books at such a young and impressionable age? They're not graphic, per se, but the amount of incest in these bad boys is ridiculous. VC Andrews' first short story was called "I Slept With My Uncle On My Wedding Night." That should give you a vague idea of what we're dealing with.

I think it snowed this morning. I'm not positive, but when I was outside, it sure felt like snow. Then, an hour later, it was scorching hot. A little after that, this monster monsoon came out of nowhere. The rain fell down in violent sheets, and then, afterwards, it was chilly. When I finally left work, it was warm and humid. I feel like I lived through all the seasons in a matter of a single work shift.

Life has been a little hectic lately. Work is nuts, especially with dealings regarding a customer I've come to regard only as Uncle Crazy. I'm afraid I'll call him this to his face one day on accident. For a while, I was silently referring to one of my customers/drinking buddies "Lonely Guy." Then, one day when I was saying good-bye to him, I caught myself saying, "Bye, Lo- uh, Joe. Bye Joe!" Yikes, you have to be careful with mental nicknames.

And then I have the ongoing car problems, and the impending move out to the country. It's not really "the country," but it sure as heck feels like it. The closest attractions in my town include a bog and an antique mall. It's building up, though! One day my new town will be the Naperville of the northwest suburbs.

According to Mapquest, my new town is practically equidistant between Chicago and Milwaukee. I think I will start telling people I live in the Milwaukee suburbs. Living in the Chicago burbs has been nothing but a pain in the ass. Does Milwaukee have a rush hour? What about their sales tax? I already love the Brewers, so I suppose I'm halfway there. Literally, halfway there.

So Chris locked us out of the house late on Wednesday night. We were standing on our second floor balcony, he was goofing off, and he locked us out. He had to shimmy down the pole to the ground while I stood on the balcony yelling at him and waving my wine glass around. "Why don't you come down too?" he yelled up at me, but I had two reasons for not wanting to leave the balcony.

1. I might fall down and break a precious ankle.
2. This was Chris' mess, and he could get us out of it by himself.

So, in his socks, Chris walked over to our first neighbor's door, who listened to Chris' explanation of being locked out and promptly shut the door in his face. Then, he disappeared around the side of our townhouse quad and was able to use the cell phone of our other neighbor. Apparently, he called 911 and had the following conversation:

"911, what's your emergency?"
"Um, we're locked out of our condo and can't get back in."
"Is this an emergency? Are there any small children or animals locked inside?"
"Well, my wife's stuck on the balcony, and she's pretty pissed off."
"Okay. I'll call the fire department."

Ten minutes later, this big honking fire truck rolls into our parking lot. Chris and the fire captain are walking around the area, trying to scope out the situation, while I sip at my wine from the balcony. A little while later, I look inside the condo through the balcony doors and see a hand coming through my living room window, wriggling around past the curtains and blinds. Then, the hand manages to push the curtains aside, and in crawls a fireman. He gets a few of his grimey handprints on my walls, and then he walks over to the balcony doors and unlatches them so I can get back in. I thank him, feel a little embarrassed that a fireman was in our place when I didn't even have a chance to clean up, and then watch him go down our stairs, where he unlocks the front door and lets Chris- you remember Chris, he's the one that locked us out in the first place- back inside. Chris is holding the broken screen the fireman had had to wrangle off the window in order to get inside, and he gives me this big, shit-eating grin and says, "Wasn't that fun?"

So now I'm patiently awaiting a bill from the village for wasting fire department resources. I read in the paper the next day that while we were being "rescued," two buildings and a forest preserve burned down across town.

I bought a kazoo today. I'm hoping to learn a few songs, maybe take my act on the road. I originally wanted to get the slide whistle, but the kazoo was a fourth of the price. And I think it's just as annoying, if not more.

Look! Our house is no longer just a pile of dirt! It has WALLS!



On an unrelated note, I saw this sign in the bathroom at the antique mall we went to today. God, it must suck to be the wig cashier.

Things I learned this week:

Using a Port-A-John ain't so bad if you're a little drunk.

I don't like The Smithereens.

I only know three songs by Kansas.

I love 80's cover bands.

At least exchanging tickets for beers instead of money for beers means you're saving money on tipping. You can't tip with a ticket, that would just be ridiculous.

I agree with Gigi on this one: if I ever have a teenaged daughter, I'd rather she be a depressed stoner than a perky little thing in tiny shorts and an even tinier halter top. Some of these bitches need to cover up, and stat.

*****

In other, non-holiday news, MV and I somehow got to talking about VC Andrews this week. Remember VC Andrews? I don't think you can grow up and get through junior high without cracking open one of these horribly dirty, formulaic, super incestuous saga novels. For me, it started with "Flowers In The Attic" back in junior high, when I dog-eared all of the dirty pages and made sure to read them aloud to my friends. I quickly went through all of VC's other books before just as quickly discarding them. Now, MV is ordering the Casteel saga from Amazon.com, and I have the Cutler series coming in from Ebay. I actually can't wait to start reading these books again. Not because of the "dirty parts" per se- but because of the nostalgia factor, and to see how much I remember.

On Amazon.com, the first search term for the Casteel books is "hill scum." Hill scum! Who searches for a good novel with the term "hill scum?!"

More to come.

It's too early for dancing, but here comes the music....

Every once in a while, I listen to my old G. Love CD and suffer from a mild bit of nostalgia. I'm way young, skipping around my old bedroom and slutting it up for another night out in the city with my girl Carole. I have nothing to worry about! I'm about to graduate from college, the world is my oyster, and I most certainly don't have an impending mortgage!

We have a closing date on our house. September 27th. Holy paperwork with the title company, Batman. How the heck am I going to get through THIS? As if I didn't have enough going on in my busy life, now I'm knee deep in making one of the top five biggest decisions in my life. I'm excited, don't get me wrong. But, fuck. What the hell do I know about caring for a house?

I never feel ready for anything.

In other news, it's party week here in the suburbs. Tomorrow night, I'm going to the Barrington Fest with a couple of my favorite girls to see the self-proclaimed "favorite '80s cover band of Chicago." This should be good, really good. Then, the rest of the week, the Cheese and I are hitting up the Arlington festival to see The Smithereens and Kansas. Ah, what would our communities do without washed up bands and beer bracelets? Finally, we're rounding out the week with attending a wedding for one of my second cousins. The second cousin that I neglected to invite to my own wedding. Oh well, apparently she hasn't held a grudge.

I do really love summer festivals. Weddings, too. I'm wearing one of my old dresses to this particular wedding. I bought it during the G. Love days (bringing it full circle) when I had two weddings in the same week to attend- one with Tony and the other with Shane. This dress will bring back some weird memories, for sure, but it still fits, at least. I haven't worn it in five years, and when I tried it on the other day, I couldn't help but think that while I may never really gain any perspective, at least I'm never going to gain any weight.